After a 'Lonely' Childhood, Chloe Lattanzi Spiraled into Anorexia. But with the Help of Mom Olivia Newton-John, and Her Music, the Rising Singer (Seen on MTV!) Is Thriving

Beautiful!" Olivia Newton-John exclaims, having just caught sight of her daughter Chloe Lattanzi in the mirror in the dining room of their Malibu home. With her mother's attention on her, Chloe beams. "Look at my pretty hair, Mama!" says the petite 22-year-old, who only recently returned to her natural, chestnut-colored locks. Why the change? Chloe gives a small shrug. "I had to go through that 'blonde phase,'?" she says.

Loving herself just the way she is: It's a lesson that Chloe—who spent years of her adolescence battling an eating disorder—has learned only recently. After her parents (dad is actor Matthew Lattanzi, 49) divorced when she was 9, "my dad lived away and my mom was touring. I was alone a lot and I couldn't handle it," says Chloe, who battled "heavy bouts of depression" that spiraled into anorexia at 17. Even as her 5'6" frame deteriorated to a frail 90 lbs., "I was in denial," she recalls. "I pretended I was really strong—but my body was screaming for help."

Five years later, Chloe is singing a different tune. Not only has she fought her way back to health—"I'm fully recovered," she declares—but the aspiring singer landed a spot on MTV's live reality music competition Rock the Cradle, on which she faces off against other celebrity offspring. (See box on page 110.) "You're amazing. Your voice is really unusual, intriguing and theatrical," praised judge Belinda Carlisle after Chloe's rendition of the INXS hit "Never Tear Us Apart." "You were great!"

Settling into her mother's white plush couch, her feet tucked under her petite body, Chloe can only exclaim, "I feel awesome!" as she reflects on where she is in her life right now, adding, "It has taken me a long time to get here." Newton-John, 59, recalls that her daughter grew up in Malibu as a "bright, happy kid" who filled her days listening to Pink Floyd with her dad and making homemade gifts for her mom. But after her parents divorced in '95, "everything changed," says Chloe. She only visited with her dad about once a month and, though she lived full-time with her mom, Chloe often stayed behind while the Grease star traveled the world. "I remember being 16 and having the house to myself for months at a time. That develops into a big welt of sadness," says Chloe. Thinking back on what those years were like, she explains, "I never had the consistency of my mother coming home every day and having dinner with the family. I missed out on a lot with her. I had this feeling in me like, 'Okay, you're not a priority—so just deal with it.'"

Newton-John acknowledges that, as a single parent and "the breadwinner in the family," she made some mistakes. "Chloe was never physically alone—but emotionally she was alone and needed me," Newton-John says. "And, you know, I could have never predicted the effect it would have had, me being gone some of the time."

As it turns out, the effect was devastating. Recalling that "I didn't feel worthy of existing," Chloe began "restricting things"—specifically food, sometimes going weeks eating nothing but salad and frozen yogurt all day. "I felt like I had to be disciplined and hard on myself to be a good person," she explains. "Like I was being a better person the more I deprived myself."

As she lost weight ("I actually didn't not eat—I just didn't eat enough," Chloe notes), her frightened mother confronted her. "But I would just be that kid who was like, 'I'm fine. Everything's okay,'?" Chloe says. "I hid everything from her. I was in denial." The turning point came when Chloe—who was in therapy—asked her father to accompany her to a session in 2006; Lattanzi (who declined to comment for this story) immediately realized his daughter was in distress and began to spend more time with her. "I was like, Whoa—that feels nice, having a person here," Chloe recalls. "I started to let my guard down and ..." Her voice trails off as she chokes back tears. "I was able to say, 'I'm weak and I don't want to deal with this anymore,'" she continues, her voice shaking. "I had enough."

This time when Newton-John returned from the road, Chloe finally opened up to her mom, which was "scary—but she was amazing," says Chloe. After that watershed moment, "I made the point to be involved in her life and what she was going through," says Newton-John. "That's when things started to turn around."

Lattanzi temporarily moved into Newton-John's home so the whole family was together as Chloe went through a two-month outpatient program. "It took time for us all to communicate and work things through," says Newton-John. Adds Chloe: "They were scared, but my parents were so amazing to say, 'I'm sorry and I love you.' That was so healing. I finally felt I could just be who I was."

Today, Chloe says, "we all have a great relationship. My problem healed our family." Chloe talks to Lattanzi—who lives in a teepee in Malibu and is making a documentary film—nearly every day ("He's one of my best friends," she says) and loves going hiking with her mother or having a TV night with her at home watching Curb Your Enthusiasm episodes on DVD. "Through this experience, I really realized how much Chloe means to me," Newton-John says. "We've been fantastic ever since."

On the night of Chloe's Rock the Cradle debut, Newton-John was in the audience, cheering on her "talented" daughter. "Her music is fantastic—she's an artist," Newton-John says. And she will continue to support Chloe however she can, even as she takes a 21-day walk along the Great Wall of China to raise money through her Web site, greatwalktobeijing.com, to build a cancer and wellness center in her native Australia. "A TV truck is coming," says Newton-John, a breast cancer survivor, "so I can send messages home [to Chloe]!"

And yet home is about to get a bit quieter. "Chloe wants to get her own place," Newton-John admits with a sigh. "But it's time. That's my job, to prepare her to fly. She's ready."

Chloe agrees. "All I'm focusing on right now," she says with a smile, "is being happy, and making sure I'm enjoying every moment."

More From This Article

Chloe Unplugged

THE SINGER TALKS ABOUT EATING-DISORDER WARNING SIGNS—AND HOW TO HELP

Why do you think a person develops an eating disorder? Why does someone choose drugs? It's to find something that helps you escape. [Restricting food] helped me escape. It had nothing to do with food; there were deeper issues in my family I had buried. Don't take eating disorders at face value; there's true dysfunction going on.

So what should parents look out for? Just because you're skinny does not mean you have an eating disorder. The warning signs to look for are the arms—if someone is sick, her arms don't have that nice little coating of feminine flesh. It's more behavioral things, though—they're really obsessive about things like food, and usually people with a problem will always prepare meals themselves. I think people who are perfectionists can develop issues like that.

What's the best way to help someone who has an eating disorder? It doesn't help to say, "We're scared for you. You're going to die." That just makes the eating disorder thrive, because fear is at the core of it. The more scared my parents got, the worse I got. It's key to let the person know that they're beautiful as they are. It helps to say, "You're strong. We believe in you."

What helped you through recovery? I was reading The Power of Now [by Eckhart Tolle]. I read I Am That [by Nisargadatta Maharaj]. I did a lot of journaling and took a lot of time to go deep within myself. I was meditating during that time too.

Are you afraid of relapses? No. My relationship with food is good now. But I don't like to eat in front of people. Every time I sit in front of someone with food I get anxiety. I feel like they're judging me. So I eat by myself—which I'd like to fix one day.

What's your diet like now? I'm very picky. I eat all organic vegetables, whole-grain bread—stuff that's amazing for your well-being. I value my body so much now, and I want to live a really long time.

'my Music Kept Me Wanting to Live'

CHLOE TAKES HER TOUGH TIMES AND TURNS THEM INTO A COLLECTION OF 'ELECTRO, SOULFUL' SONGS

As she battled her eating disorder—a period she now looks back on as "my darkest time"—Chloe says that "music was all I had. It helped me get the negativity out." No wonder then that several of the tracks on her upcoming debut album, tentatively titled Lonely Nights in Paradise (which she describes as "electro, '80s, but very soulful"), deal with her eating disorder. One song, "Delicious," includes lyrics like, "And I'm losing my reason to feel/ All this wasting away is for you/ 'Cuz I need you to see that I'm real." Says one of the album's producers, Jarrad "Jaz" Rogers, who has also worked with Lauryn Hill: "Chloe's tapped into how to draw from an experience and make it poetic." That means more to her than becoming the next big thing. "I don't expect to be a star," she says. "I'm doing this purely to prove to myself that I'm strong."

Rockin' Cradle

MTV SETS OUT TO PROVE THAT TALENT IS ALL RELATIVE

How do the kids of nine music icons jump-start their careers? Cue Rock the Cradle, which pits celebrity children such as Lucy Walsh—daughter of the Eagles' Joe Walsh and an early frontrunner—against Kenny Loggins' son Crosby. At stake is a Jive record deal and a $100,000 prize. But above all, says executive producer Tony DiSanto, "the show's about trying to get out from the shadow of their parents."